An Introduction to the \u27Oceans and Society: Blue Planet\u27 Initiative

We live on a blue planet, and Earth’s waters benefit many sectors of society. The future of our blue planet is increasingly reliant on the services delivered by marine, coastal and inland waters and on the advancement of effective, evidence-based decisions on sustainable development. ‘Oceans and Society: Blue Planet’ is an initiative of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) that aims to ensure the sustained development and use of ocean and coastal observations for the benefit of society. The initiative works to advance and exploit synergies among the many observational programmes devoted to ocean and coastal waters; to improve engagement with a variety of stakeholders for enhancing the timeliness, quality and range of information delivered; and to raise awareness of the societal benefits of ocean observations at the public and policy levels. This paper summarises the role of the initiative, current activities and considerations for future directions

NKX3.1 is a direct TAL1 target gene that mediates proliferation of TAL1-expressing human T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia

TAL1 (also known as SCL) is expressed in >40% of human T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemias (T-ALLs). TAL1 encodes a basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor that can interfere with the transcriptional activity of E2A and HEB during T cell leukemogenesis; however, the oncogenic pathways directly activated by TAL1 are not characterized. In this study, we show that, in human TAL1–expressing T-ALL cell lines, TAL1 directly activates NKX3.1, a tumor suppressor gene required for prostate stem cell maintenance. In human T-ALL cell lines, NKX3.1 gene activation is mediated by a TAL1–LMO–Ldb1 complex that is recruited by GATA-3 bound to an NKX3.1 gene promoter regulatory sequence. TAL1-induced NKX3.1 activation is associated with suppression of HP1-α (heterochromatin protein 1 α) binding and opening of chromatin on the NKX3.1 gene promoter. NKX3.1 is necessary for T-ALL proliferation, can partially restore proliferation in TAL1 knockdown cells, and directly regulates miR-17-92. In primary human TAL1-expressing leukemic cells, the NKX3.1 gene is expressed independently of the Notch pathway, and its inactivation impairs proliferation. Finally, TAL1 or NKX3.1 knockdown abrogates the ability of human T-ALL cells to efficiently induce leukemia development in mice. These results suggest that tumor suppressor or oncogenic activity of NKX3.1 depends on tissue expression

Vaccine breakthrough hypoxemic COVID-19 pneumonia in patients with auto-Abs neutralizing type I IFNs

Life-threatening `breakthrough' cases of critical COVID-19 are attributed to poor or waning antibody response to the SARS- CoV-2 vaccine in individuals already at risk. Pre-existing autoantibodies (auto-Abs) neutralizing type I IFNs underlie at least 15% of critical COVID-19 pneumonia cases in unvaccinated individuals; however, their contribution to hypoxemic breakthrough cases in vaccinated people remains unknown. Here, we studied a cohort of 48 individuals ( age 20-86 years) who received 2 doses of an mRNA vaccine and developed a breakthrough infection with hypoxemic COVID-19 pneumonia 2 weeks to 4 months later. Antibody levels to the vaccine, neutralization of the virus, and auto- Abs to type I IFNs were measured in the plasma. Forty-two individuals had no known deficiency of B cell immunity and a normal antibody response to the vaccine. Among them, ten (24%) had auto-Abs neutralizing type I IFNs (aged 43-86 years). Eight of these ten patients had auto-Abs neutralizing both IFN-a2 and IFN-., while two neutralized IFN-omega only. No patient neutralized IFN-ss. Seven neutralized 10 ng/mL of type I IFNs, and three 100 pg/mL only. Seven patients neutralized SARS-CoV-2 D614G and the Delta variant (B.1.617.2) efficiently, while one patient neutralized Delta slightly less efficiently. Two of the three patients neutralizing only 100 pg/mL of type I IFNs neutralized both D61G and Delta less efficiently. Despite two mRNA vaccine inoculations and the presence of circulating antibodies capable of neutralizing SARS-CoV-2, auto-Abs neutralizing type I IFNs may underlie a significant proportion of hypoxemic COVID-19 pneumonia cases, highlighting the importance of this particularly vulnerable population

COVID-19 symptoms at hospital admission vary with age and sex: results from the ISARIC prospective multinational observational study

Background: The ISARIC prospective multinational observational study is the largest cohort of hospitalized patients with COVID-19. We present relationships of age, sex, and nationality to presenting symptoms. Methods: International, prospective observational study of 60 109 hospitalized symptomatic patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 recruited from 43 countries between 30 January and 3 August 2020. Logistic regression was performed to evaluate relationships of age and sex to published COVID-19 case definitions and the most commonly reported symptoms. Results: ‘Typical’ symptoms of fever (69%), cough (68%) and shortness of breath (66%) were the most commonly reported. 92% of patients experienced at least one of these. Prevalence of typical symptoms was greatest in 30- to 60-year-olds (respectively 80, 79, 69%; at least one 95%). They were reported less frequently in children (≤ 18 years: 69, 48, 23; 85%), older adults (≥ 70 years: 61, 62, 65; 90%), and women (66, 66, 64; 90%; vs. men 71, 70, 67; 93%, each P < 0.001). The most common atypical presentations under 60 years of age were nausea and vomiting and abdominal pain, and over 60 years was confusion. Regression models showed significant differences in symptoms with sex, age and country. Interpretation: This international collaboration has allowed us to report reliable symptom data from the largest cohort of patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19. Adults over 60 and children admitted to hospital with COVID-19 are less likely to present with typical symptoms. Nausea and vomiting are common atypical presentations under 30 years. Confusion is a frequent atypical presentation of COVID-19 in adults over 60 years. Women are less likely to experience typical symptoms than men

a technique that combines discrete multi-carrier modulation with a frequency division multiple access

The paper deals with design and performance analysis of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) based downlink cellular wireless communications. Due to a high degree of users mobility, the Base Station is assumed to have only a statistical knowledge of the users channels. Relying on the ergodic capacities connected to the user rates, a sub-carrier and power allocation that minimizes the total transmitted power is proposed. The allocation strategy requires only the knowledge of the channel statistics and the rate requirements for all users. An extension and a performance analysis of this allocation algorithm in a multi-cell environment working with a frequency re-use factor equal to one is also conducted. A condition for the multi-cell network to be able to satisfy all rate requirements i

Iterative Mercury/waterfilling for Parallel Multiple Access Channels

International audienceThis paper describes a power allocation strategy for fixed constellation over parallel Gaussian channels in the multiuser context. The criterion under consideration is mutual information, given arbitrary input distributions over users and over subcarriers. The algorithm achieves with very low complexity the multi-user aggregate sum mutual information upper bound. The algorithm is based on an iterative Mercury/waterfilling procedure. Moreover, we extend the framework to a decentralized scenario using a linear approximation of the MMSE function. We show, in particular that each user can, under certain assumptions, independently determine the power allocation without knowing the channel information of other users. Simulation results validate the theoretical claims

Conception et optimisation de systèmes de communications à porteuses multiples

La majeure partie de cette thèse s'inscrit dans le cadre du projet RNRT IDILE. Nous avons conçu un modem dédié à la transmission de données sur le réseau électrique basse tension dans son intégralité (synchronisation, accès, etc.). Une architecture complète de réseau point-multipoint lui est associée. Nous nous sommes ensuite attardés sur le calcul des bornes de Cramér-Rao (CRB) pour l'estimation conjointe du résidu de fréquence d'échantillonnage et du canal. Cette étude théorique nous montre que les CRB décroissent en O(1/N^3) et O(1/N) respectivement, où N est la longueur de la séquence d'apprentissage. De plus, nous observons en comparant ses performances à la CRB, que notre estimateur présente un très bon compromis performance/complexité. Les expressions de la CRB obtenues en régime asymptotique, plus facilement interprétables, nous donnent quant à elles des indications précieuses pour la conception des séquences d'apprentissage. La dernière partie de la thèse traite du problème de l'attribution des ressources et de la puissance dans un contexte OFDMA radiomobile multi-cellulaire sous la contrainte de satisfaire des requêtes de débits et de minimiser la puissance totale émise en lien descendant. On utilise des canaux de Rayleigh et la station de base ne connaît que les rapports gain-à-bruit moyens de chaque utilisateur. Ce problème d'optimisation est résolu par la méthode des multiplieurs de Lagrange. Le débit moyen requis dans la cellule apparaît comme un paramètre central dans les expressions obtenues. Enfin, un résultat majeur indique que dans le cas multi-cellulaire, l'algorithme d'attribution converge si ce débit moyen est inférieur à un certain seuil.This work is part of the French RNRT project IDILE. We have entirely conceived a modem dedicated to data transmission over the low voltage network (network protocol, synchronization, access, etc.). An overall point-multipoint network architecture is also presented. We have derived Cramér-Rao Bounds associated with the joint estimation of the clock frequency offset and the channel. This theoretical study shows that the CRBs decrease in the order of O(1/N^3) and O(1/N) respectively, where N is the training sequence length. Moreover, the asymptotic expressions give guidelines for training sequence design. And if we compare its performance with the CRB, our clock frequency offset estimator makes a good compromise between performance and complexity. The last part of this thesis deals with resource and power attribution in a wireless multi-cell OFDMA context, and the constraint is to both satisfy the bitrates requests and minimize the total emitted power in the downlink. We use Rayleigh channels and the base station only knows the mean gain-to-noise ratios of each user. This optimization problem is solved using Lagrange multipliers. The mean rate required in the cell appears as a central parameter in the obtained expressions. Finally, the major result is that in the multi-cell context, the attribution algorithm converges if this mean required rate is below a given threshold.ORSAY-PARIS 11-BU Sciences (914712101) / SudocSudocFranceF

BIOACTIVITE DES MATERIAUX DE RECONSTITUTION FLUORES (INTERPRETATION)

CLERMONT FD-BCIU-Santé (631132104) / SudocPARIS-BIUM (751062103) / SudocSudocFranceF

Performance of a Resource Allocation Strategy for an FH-OFDMA based System in a multi-cell environment

International audienc